When using a dark GTK theme, one might encounter Opera address bar and Internet pages with unreadable input and text fields (e.g. Amazon can have black text on black text field background). This can happen because the site only sets either background or text color, and Opera takes the other one from the theme.

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Using an installed clear theme and a command help to work around the problem:

Plugins

Opera can use Netscape-based plugins that are supported by most major browsers, like Firefox and Chromium. For details about different plugins and installation instructions see Browser Plugins. In Opera, the plugin path can be specified under Settings > Preferences... > Advanced > Content > Plug-in Options.

.xinitrc example

Command-line example

To use the variables from the command line call Opera as:

$ OPERAPLUGINWRAPPER_PRIORITY=0 OPERA_KEEP_BLOCKED_PLUGIN=1 opera &

Profile in tmpfs

Relocate the browser profile to a tmpfs filesystem, including /tmp for improvements in application response as the entire profile is now stored in RAM. Another benefit is a reduction in disk read and write operations, of which SSDs benefit the most.

There are currently two ways of doing this:

using Profile-sync-daemon, that automatically detects and relocates the Opera profile to tmpfs.

using the -pd command-line flag to tell Opera where to store its profile data:

$ opera -pd /tmp/opera

Appearance

Themes

Although Opera is cross-platform, it can be made to integrate very well into various Linux desktop environments.

Qt

To make the menus look integrated with Qt, install your preferred Qt theme and apply it by using qtconfig.

KDE

To make Opera use KDE icons, you can install a theme such as this one.

Tab modes

Opera has native support for tab cascading and tiling mode. Appropriate buttons can be found by activating the "Main" toolbar or by dragging and dropping the buttons anywhere desired, found in Menu > Appearance > Buttons > Browser.

Fonts

If the ttf-ms-fontsAUR package has been installed before running Opera for the first time, Opera will use those fonts by default, regardless of what is specified by local GTK+ options, GNOME or KDE font management. To force existing installations of Opera to use the options set by your system:

To open a new window for private browsing when already running Opera you can just press Template:Keypress or look under Menu > New Tabs and Windows > New Private Window. All subsequent opened tabs with be private as well.

Accessibility Tips

Disable text selection

It is possible to disable text selection in Opera. However, text selection through JavaScript will still work (for example in forms, etc.). To get to the setting follow the link bellow:

opera:config#System|DisableTextSelect

Grab and scroll mode

Besides setting text selection off, grab and scroll mode makes page scrolling possible with mouse dragging. It is very useful, especially when you have a touchscreen. Copy and paste the link bellow to get to the mentioned setting.

opera:config#UserPrefs|ScrollIsPan

It is also possible to change this setting on the fly by dragging and dropping the appropriate Opera button into a toolbar. The button can be found in Menu > Appearance > Buttons > Browser View.

Long pressing a link opens it in a background tab (extension)

It is possible to open up any long-clicked link in a new background tab by installing this extension.

Virtual On-Screen keyboard (extension)

There is an extension which allows the use of an on-screen virtual keyboard. Further details and installation link can be found here.

Troubleshooting

Slow scrolling on NVIDIA cards

Try running the following command:

$ nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2

On some computers, http://helion.pl works extremely slow without this hack, making it a perfect site for testing.

Opera crashes when starting or closing with GTK+ 2.24.7+

If this crash occurs, you can work around it by changing the DialogToolkit option to 4:

opera:config#FileSelector|DialogToolkit

This will disable GTK+ styling support and hence avoid the issue.

Unreadable input fields and address bar with dark GTK+ themes

When using a dark GTK theme, one might encounter Opera address bar and Internet pages with unreadable input and text fields (e.g. Amazon can have black text on black text field background). This can happen because the site only sets either background or text color, and Opera takes the other one from the theme.

Using an installed clear theme and a command help to work around the problem: